Brexiteer John Redwood rubbished reports about the settlement the UK are expected to pay the EU, suggesting Britain can walk away for free.

Speaking on LBC, the Conservative MP claimed that the EU needs a trade deal with Britain, and will eventually agree to a trade deal with the UK.

Mr Redwood described reports about a potential £36billion settlement as “completely ridiculous”.

He said: “This business that we have to pay to get them to talk about trade is just completely ridiculous.

“They need to talk about trade more than we need to talk about trade.

“We all know they will talk about trade before March 2019 because it’s in their interest to do so, we have absolutely no need to pay them a penny, to get them to talk about something they need to talk about.”

Officials have claimed that Britain will pay no more than £36billion to the EU in order to settle the Brexit divorce bill.

Three senior Whitehall officials have claimed the Government is willing to break the deadlock in negotiations by offering a take it or leave it deal.

A senior Whitehall source told The Telegraph: “The 27 say they can’t knock off the bits of their ‘bill’ until the very end – but politically we can’t move on money until the 27 member states start to show compromise. As a negotiation process, it just doesn’t work.

“We know (the EU’s) position is 60billion euros, but the actual bottom line is 50billion euros.

“Ours is closer to 30billion euros but the actual landing zone is 40billion euros, even if the public and politicians are not all there yet.”

The Brexiteer reiterated that the EU will come to Britain for a trade deal and was trying to get the UK diving itself.

He added: “Ministers would be quite wrong to be talking about any figures, we don’t owe them any money.

“It would be silly to be offering something when the EU is still not very willing to talk and is not coming up with anything constructive on its own side.

“The EU’s tactic is very clear. It’s divide and rule to try and get Britain negotiating with herself.

“Once again they have been very successful because the Telegraph story is in that category of stories we have seen for months now, where various people in Britain who clearly don’t have Britain’s interests at heart, brief newspapers to say that we must make compromises and sacrifices.

“That is a good way to undermine the British position.

“There is absolutely no legal need or political need to offer anything at all, full stop.”